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The Future That Hasn't Arrived

Posted by timothy on from the would-settle-for-unlimited-cell-minutes dept.

jonerik writes "MSNBC has this article on an exhibit starting this week at Philadelphia's Lost Highways Archive and Research Library. Entitled Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised, the exhibit focuses on the artwork of the elusive A.C. Radebaugh, a commercial illustrator whose works promised us a glittering, shiny tomorrow from the '30s to the '50s; a helicopter in every garage, massive streamlined cars, vacations on Mars - in short, pretty much everything we didn't get. The exhibit collects examples from Radebaugh's portfolio, auto designs for Chrysler, DoSoto, and Dodge, ads, and 'Closer Than We Think!,' a syndicated weekly comic strip drawn by Radebaugh. I want my jetpack, dammit!"

4 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Those futures aren't worth complaining by Rocko+Bonaparte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am assuming the root of the matter is the disparity between what was predicted in art (science fiction) and what actually happened. I always felt there was too much of a preoccupation with space travel in the past. I guess this makes sense, given the Space Race took up a good amount of people's attention. However, there were two areas that were overlooked: The Internet and advancements in genetics. Both caught the forward-thinkers of the past by surprise.

    There were many assumptions of huge talking robots, but not as many about the computers we have today. Our computers are not as powerful, but they're a commodity, available to everybody. Also, cloning was a pipe dream; something to happen in the year 2500 or whatever. And here we are, playing around with cloning cats.

    It's not so bad, really, though I could use a good mail-order robobabe right about now.

    --
    No I'm not trolling.
  2. The Missing Element in all Futuristic Art by ShortedOut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .... is they focus on technology but forget one thing... Population... everyone conveniently forgets that the future holds TONS more people in it than now. What will that population want as far as technology goes? Futuristic cars? Pfft. Please, Houston/Dallas/LA, etc are parking lots as it is... imagine when there's twice as many people living there.

    Know that empty lot next door? Wave bye bye.

    That field of wildflowers? It's an apartment complex now.

    I'd just like to see some fanciful futuristic art that depicts technology that looks like it was designed with a large population in mind.

  3. it is interesting to look back on... by fermion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It is interesting to look at past predictions of the future because they can tell us how difficult it is for us to truly think creatively. In most cases, we are so limited by out prejudices and assumptions, that we can't really predict anything past next Thursday. I really believe the value of these predictions is to remind us of who we were, rather than tell us who we are going to be. For instance in many mid 20th century science fiction, the 'simple' tasks of cooking and cleaning were handled by robots, but the 'complex' tasks of navigation still had to be done.

    OTOH, exhibits like this speak to the great optimism of human nature. Though it took Europe five hundred years from the time of Marco Polo to the time that they colonized a new continent, we were in the mid 20th century certain that we could conquer the solar system in fifty years. The same holds true for helicopters, jet packs, and everything else.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  4. Re: Read this essay by Bertrand Russell by teorth · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Perhaps you read it, but for those out there who have not quite realized that the promise of technology, more free time, has not materialized, please read this essay.

    Well, it has, in absolute terms, but not in relative terms. The problem is that human psychology makes us view things using relative metrics instead of absolute ones. If you earn a 20% raise this year, but all your friends earn 100% raises, do you feel richer or poorer compared to last year?

    If you want to have a 1950s comfortable standard of living regarding possessions, health care, entertainment, food, etc. you can do so by working far fewer hours than a 1950s human had to. But if you want a 2000s standard of living... ah, then you still have to work, or otherwise procure income. But at least work tends to be less menial and physically taxing than it did in the 1950s, on the average at least.

    It's a question of whether you measure standard of living by absolute standards or relative ones. No matter what the technology level, it will be always true (in capitalist societies, anyway) that someone who works hard will, on the average, earn more than someone who works little at the same level of technology. So of course the idle will never win ... in relative terms. But if you view things in absolute terms, the idle American today can live far more comfortably than the average hard-working American in the 1950s. (The same is even true of the third world; a citizen of country X today has a more comfortable existence than a citizen of X in the 1950s, in almost all cases - calorie intake has more or less doubled, for instance, and life expectancy extended by a decade or more. Again, in relative terms the poor countries of 2000 will be behind the rich countries of 2000, but they can certainly be comparable with the rich countries of 1950 in many absolute, objective metrics.).

    Nevertheless, I do agree with you on one point - there is more to life than the rat race. But you are free at any time to downshift and live a comfortable and leisuirely life, and viewed in absolute terms one has far more capability to do so now than in the past. It's only the relative viewpoint which seems to suggest that one cannot "afford" to be idle.

    Terry